Wrestling in the backyard can just be an informal tussle between brothers, cousins or friends, or you can wrestle as a formal contest according to specific rules of competition. In either case, the game will be more enjoyable for all involved if you observe some basic safety rules and competitive conventions throughout.
Preliminary Considerations
Before you begin a session of backyard wrestling, all players must agree on the purpose and rules of the game. You may be wrestling to prepare yourself for a tournament, to get into shape, or simply for the fun of it. Any reason is all right, so long as everybody in the group agrees on why you're wrestling.
Ring Safety
Check the area where you want to wrestle before beginning. You will need a space that is a minimum of 16 ft. on a side and is similar to an average high school wrestling mat. In a backyard, this should be an even piece of grassy lawn, free of stumps, rocks and other obstructions. Create a 5-ft.-wide "buffer zone" of safe space surrounding the wrestling area. This area does not have to be perfect -- it can be bark dust or gravel, for example -- but it should also be free of hazards such as stumps and sharp objects.
Officials
Always have a neutral third party acting as referee for your backyard wrestling. If you're playing for points, it's best that he knows how the scoring conventions of your chosen rules work. However, his main role is safety. He'll call a stop to the action if the match moves too near a hazard, or if one or both of you starts to lose your temper in the heat of the action. Always immediately follow all instructions of your official.
Play Wrestling
Play wrestling is unstructured physical play, the sort nearly everybody does as a child. There are no points and no real "rules," although hitting, choking and submission holds are usually forbidden. Even with this informal kind of backyard wrestling, it's still important to have a safe area to wrestle and an official to help keep everything safe and fun.
Olympic Wrestling
Olympic wrestling includes the styles of collegiate, freestyle and Greco-Roman -- the types of wrestling done in high school, college and Olympic competition. When you wrestle under these rules, striking and submission holds are not allowed, but you may use the standard repertoire of moves and points from the specific style of wrestling you use.
Submission Wrestling
With the popularity of mixed martial arts, some backyard wrestling has come to include the chokes and joint locks of submission wrestling. As with Olympic wrestling, this style should observe all the rules of the particular competition you're trying to emulate. Of all the styles of backyard wrestling, this is the one where an official is most important; submission holds can easily cause an injury without proper supervision.
Filming
A more recent trend in backyard wrestling is to do competitive wrestling -- or even the stage wrestling typical of professional wrestling entertainment -- in your backyard expressly to film and post on user video websites such as YouTube. Even in this kind of wrestling, you should focus on participant safety first.
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